Paranormal Magazine

Police say a man living in Germany was shot in the back of his head, but that it took him five years to realize it.

Police said Tuesday that the 35-year-old man was hit by a .22-caliber bullet in the western town of Herne as he was out in the street partying and drunk on New Year’s Eve five years ago.

They say the man recalled receiving a blow to the head, but told them he didn’t seek medical assistance at the time.

The bullet did not penetrate the skull, and police say the Polish man only went to see a doctor recently when he felt a lump on the back of his head. An X-ray showed an object under his skin, and doctors operated and found the projectile.

Police say it may have been a stray bullet fired by a reveler in celebration.

A senior astronomer has said that the hunt for alien life should take into account alien “sentient machines”.

Seti, the Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence, has until now sought radio signals from worlds like Earth.

But Seti astronomer Seth Shostak argues that the time between aliens developing radio technology and artificial intelligence (AI) would be short.

Writing in Acta Astronautica, he says that the odds favour detecting such alien AI rather than “biological” life.

Read on at news.bbc.co.uk.

The payout, approved by the City Council on Friday, settles a federal lawsuit the seven filed after they were arrested and jailed for two days for dressing up like zombies in downtown Minneapolis on July 22, 2006, to protest “mindless” consumerism.

When arrested at the intersection of Hennepin Avenue and 6th Street N., most of them had thick white powder and fake blood on their faces and dark makeup around their eyes. They were walking in a stiff, lurching fashion and carrying four bags of sound equipment to amplify music from an iPod when they were arrested by police who said they were carrying equipment that simulated “weapons of mass destruction.”

However, they were never charged with any crime.

Although U.S. District Judge Joan Ericksen had dismissed the zombies’ lawsuit, it was resurrected in February by a three-judge panel of the Eighth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, which concluded that police lacked probable cause to arrest the seven, a decision setting the stage for a federal trial this fall. The settlement means there will be no trial.

“I feel great that the city is being held accountable for the actions of their police,” said Raphi Rechitsky, 27, of Minneapolis, one of the seven zombies, who said he and his friends were performing street theater when they were arrested. He is a Ph.D. candidate in sociology at the University of Minnesota.

Minneapolis City Attorney Susan L. Segal said it was in the best interests of the city to settle. “We believe the police acted reasonably, but you never know what a jury is going to do with a case,” she said.

If a jury had concluded that the seven plaintiffs’ constitutional rights had been violated and awarded $50,000 to each, plus defense attorney’s fees, “it could have been quite substantial,” Segal said.

[via: startribune.com]

A Massachusetts man who was rushed to hospital with a collapsed lung came home with an unusual diagnosis: a pea plant was growing in his lung.

Ron Sveden had been battling emphysema for months when his condition deteriorated.

He was steeling himself for a cancer diagnosis when X-rays revealed the growth in his lung.

Doctors believe that Mr Sveden ate the pea at some point, but it “went down the wrong way” and sprouted.

“One of the first meals I had in the hospital after the surgery had peas for the vegetable. I laughed to myself and ate them,” Mr Sveden told a local Boston TV reporter.

Mr Sveden said the plant was about half an inch (1.25cm) in size.

“Whether this would have gone full-term and I’d be working for the Jolly Green Giant, I don’t know. I think the thing that finally dawned on me is that it wasn’t the cancer,” Mr Sveden said.

He is currently recovering at home with his wife Nancy, who joked that God must have a sense of humour.

[via: news.bbc.co.uk]

Radioactive fallout from the Chernobyl nuclear disaster is still poisoning Germany’s boars nearly 25 years on, with authorities fighting to keep toxic meat off the market as the wild boar population rockets.

The boars feed off mushrooms, truffles and wild berries which still contain high levels of caesium-137, carried in the radioactive cloud that spread across Europe following the 1986 accident at the Ukrainian nuclear plant.

“In some regions, especially in the south, the radioactivity found in boars is 10 times higher than normal,” Florian Emrich, spokesman for the Federal Agency for the Protection Against Radioactivity, said on Saturday.

A sharp increase in wild boar numbers has meant more boar meat — prized as a delicacy in Germany on a par with venison — is ending up on diners’ plates, raising concerns for human health.

“No one has fallen seriously ill after eating boar meat,” said Emrich, but all boar hunters in high-risk areas must have their game tested for radioactive contamination before it can go on sale on market stalls.

Berlin — which pays out compensation if boar meat has to be withdrawn from the market — shelled out 424,650 euros (565,000 dollars) last year to hunters and hunting associations, up from 240,000 euros in 2006.

According to the Bavarian health and food safety, nine of the 56 boars analysed last year showed contamination well above the allowed level of 600 becquerels per kilogram of meat, with some as much as twice the limit.

Wild mushrooms are especially prone to accumulating radioactivity because the toxic substances are recycled over and over in the forest humus, unlike on farmland where they are broken down by labouring and minerals in the soil.

In southern Bavaria, some porcini and girolles mushrooms contained caesium levels of several hundred becquerels per kilo last year, while blueberries and cranberries contained up to 100 becquerels, official figures show.

[via]

Ron Halliday has spent the last 30 years of his life trying to explain the unexplained. The author, whose books include UFO Scotland and Edinburgh After Dark, believes Scotland is now a haven of UFO activity.

In an exclusive interview with STV, Ron – a 60-year-old retired assistant registrar at Stirling University – said: “I think Scotland is like a world hot spot. All the UFO sightings. All the ghost sightings. All the monster sightings. Poltergeists.

“There is just so much that goes on in Scotland, it is absolutely incredible. It is very hard to explain why Scotland has all these reported incidents.”

Ron became interested in UFOs from a young age and started to research it seriously when he was 30. But what is it about the unexplained which interests him and millions of others around the world?

“The whole mystery of it. People claim all these strange experiences which are at odds with our everyday reality. You don’t walk down the street and expect to see an alien. The whole thing just seems completely bizarre.

“Things like Independence Day and The X-Files have stimulated people’s interest in the whole subject. It the media show interest in UFOs then it definitely generates more UFO reports because people come forward and say they have seen things.

“There are so many people taking photos these days, but there is also greater scepticism. It is very easy to fabricate a UFO picture. The thing that people interested in UFOs find hard to accept is why aliens don’t just land in George Square in Glasgow so TV crews can come and film them?

“I am sceptical too. But when you speak to people who have had these experiences, get their perspective on the thing – there is no particular reason why they would make this up.”

Read on at news.stv.tv for a run down of Halliday’s top ten paranormal happenings in Scotland.

A “grid of streets” on the seabed at one of the proposed locations of the lost city of Atlantis has been spotted on Google Ocean.

The government took the threat of UFOs so seriously in the 1950s that UK intelligence chiefs met to discuss the issue, newly-released files show.

Ministers even went on to commission weekly reports on UFO sightings from a committee of intelligence experts.

The papers also include a wartime account claiming prime minister Winston Churchill ordered a UFO sighting be kept secret to prevent “mass panic”.

The files show reports of UFOs peaked in 1996 – when The X Files was popular.

Read on at news.bbc.co.uk

Painted walls believed to be 5,000 years old have been found at a Neolithic excavation in Orkney.

The coloured stonework has been uncovered at the Ness of Brodgar, in the heart of the area’s World Heritage Site.

Several coloured stones have been discovered, and it is thought the find is the first of its kind in the UK.

Archaeologists believe iron ore could have been mixed with animal fat, eggs or milk to create a primitive paint.

[via: bbc.co.uk]

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